Lost on the Journey

Maybe I should hike more often. I seem to get a lot of object lessons out of my time in the woods alone with God. This week it relates to the statement Jesus made in Matthew 7.13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

I was talking to a friend as I drove to the trailhead on Thursday and remarked that I was disappointed that the Blue Ridge Parkway is still closed going south from my house because it closed off miles of trail to me that I particularly like to hike. My real complaint was that the trail I was going to be hiking was so familiar to me as to be boring.

I have been doing a good deal of grumbling to God lately for a variety of reasons and this day was no exception. I had my head down and my brain completely engaged in the task of complaining during the first part of the hike. I began to slowly realize that this part of the trail was a bit too wide to be "right" for this area and that it didn't seem to be quite as well worn as I would have expected. In fact, in some places, it wasn't quite clear that anyone had been here recently. I also didn't remember the trail looking so much like an old, abandoned road bed, so I did the smart thing, I turned back. Problem was, there were no markers for a trail anywhere to be seen and at one point I was forced to choose at a fork in the road and then I was looking at someone's house.

The good thing about my familiarity with that trail was that I knew where it must be from my current position. The bad thing was that it was straight up a leaf covered hill about a quarter mile and the climb was several hundred feet. Panting and exhausted, I reached the trail after the climb. When I got to the original place where I had gone astray, I realized that what had happened was that the trail is well-marked but maybe one-third the width of the road I had gone down. It required me to not be in cruise control to see the right path.

Again, the journey is like life. We have to be alert and we have to follow the way-markers in order to keep in the right direction to reach our destination. Once we have taken the wide path it can be quite an ordeal to get back to the narrow but correct one.

Have you seen the movie, Gran Torino, with Clint Eastwood? It teaches the Gospel pretty well.